Photos by Daniel Gomez/Special to the Reporter-News
A western diamondback rattlesnake coiles up next to a rock in its display case at the Rose Park Event Center on Sunday, March, 3, 2013. For the Love of Nature Wildlife Educators were giving a presentation on snake awareness for the upcoming Spring season.

Daniel J. Gomez

Daniel Gomez/Special to the Reporter-News
Greg Wright gathers as his daughters, Chyene Wright age 5, Dakota Wright age 7, and his niece, Marissa Becerra age 14, as well as several other children at the event gather around to look at the diplay case of a western diamondback rattlesnake on Sunday March, 3, 2013 at the Rose Park Event Center.

Daniel J. Gomez

Daniel Gomez/Special to the Reporter-News
For the Love of Nature Wildlife Educator, Sarah Strom-Kieschnick, lets Chris Kleiner and his daughters, Avery Kleiner age 9, and Austin Kleiner age 4, touch a great plains rat snake at the Rose Park Event Center on Sunday, March, 3, 2013.

Daniel J. Gomez

For the Love of Nature Wildlife Educator, Sarah Strom-Kieschnick, speaks to a crowd about the behavior of snakes as a great plains rat snake rests on her shoulders at the Rose Park Event Center on Sunday, March, 3, 2013.

Daniel J. Gomez

It was by no means coincidental that the first For the Love of Nature seminar was scheduled Sunday and that its topic was rattlesnakes.

With the Sweetwater Rattlesnake Roundup scheduled for this weekend, Sarah Kieschnick and Jeremy Wilson, the founders of the nonprofit organization, wanted to juxtapose their program with the largest rattlesnake roundup in the world.

“We don’t like the Rattlesnake Roundup,” Kieschnick told the audience of around a dozen people, mostly children, who gathered in the activity building at Rose Park Sunday afternoon.

What Kieschnick and Wilson primarily objected to is what they considered the inhumane treatment of the snakes in the name of entertainment.

“We don’t want to be all negative about it,” said Wilson. “If you kill a snake in your backyard to protect your children, I don’t have a problem with that. I have no problem with people who hunt. What we want to teach is respect.”

The 40-minute presentation was not a diatribe against the rattlesnake roundup, but an educational program about the rattlesnake and snakes that are similar. Wilson, who worked as a herpetologist at the Abilene Zoo, and Kieschnick brought a Western Diamondback, a Western Massasauga, a Great Plains Rat Catcher and a Bullsnake to the event. The first two snakes are venomous while the other two, although similar in appearance, are not

Wilson said that the Bullsnake and the Western Diamondback are often confused because they will both rear their heads and shake their tails. However, the Bullsnake has no rattle and the Diamondback will make a rattling sound when it feels threatened, as it did throughout the presentation on Sunday, creating a somewhat eerie backdrop to Wilson’s talk.

Wilson dispelled several misconceptions concerning the rattlesnake. For instance, snakes have no smell to them and that snakes do not travel in packs or even in pairs. Also, you cannot tell age a rattlesnake by the size of its rattler.

Wilson said this is the time of year that people in urban settings will most likely encounter a rattlesnake as they come out of hibernation and seek to mate. Since they cannot regulate their body temperatures, by the middle of summer, when temperatures climb past 100, the snakes will go back to places where it can cool off.

To avoid unwanted meetings with the snakes, Wilson and Kieschnick recommended that you clean up areas of debris and not leave out food.

“What attracts rodents will attract snakes,” said Kieschnick.

Wilson said the four snakes he brought were all effective at rodent control, particularly killing rodents that could carry disease. He said he was fascinated by the rattlesnake and how it used its venom to kill its prey.

“It’s really just modified saliva,” he said. “It has to be able to kill its prey quickly so that it doesn’t have to travel far to get it. It uses its venom to eat; it doesn’t want to waste it on us.”

Wilson said factors such as the drought, encroaching civilization and events like the rattlesnake roundup could impact the future population of the Western Diamondback in this part of the state.

“There’s a very good chance of that in the future,” he said. “It could be five years, it could be 20 years. We’re getting to a time when I think it is realistic to start thinking about what we’re doing to the population.”